Computer networking has improved immensely over time in both speed and reliability. With these improvements, certain efficiencies have been achieved by moving computing tasks involving large resource requirements away from severs within individual organizations to shared resources, often operated by third parties. Commonly known as “cloud computing” or “the cloud,” these networked computing resources can often meet or exceed the capabilities of on-site servers within an organization. But communication between cloud resources may require transmitting data over public or shared network links, which typically increases the risk that confidentiality of the information is lost.
A traditional solution to protecting confidential data is to encrypt entire databases at rest. But such universal encryption may be unable to protect data in use within various computing resources, particularly when the resources may be located within multiple locations connected by shared or public communications links.
In view of the shortcomings of current systems, improved methods and systems for securing data are desired.